A Dark Reunion
by ProfessorScrooge
Summary: Based on the 'Ghost Prison Incident' from the graphic novel of the same name. Ahsoka was betrayed by the Jedi, and found herself locked in their prison following the Clone Wars. Vader finds her there. OOC, Dark, could be regarded as AU, Jedi bashing. One-Shot.


**A/N: This is just a little one shot idea I had after reading the 'Ghost Prison' graphic novel. It's set after/during their arrival in the prison.**

A Dark Reunion

Ahsoka considered not for the first time the events that had led to her capture, and her imprisonment. Sitting cross-legged on her cot in the small cell, she had little else to do except meditate and peruse over her own thoughts. These days she couldn't quite hold the peace required for meditation, whether her own dark thoughts or those of the inmates around her she couldn't know which affected her most, but her once fine inner peace was long since lost.

She could remember her last days on Coruscant like it was yesterday, breathing the smoky air of cantinas in the depths of the city-planet. Unceasingly she had searched for the woman without whom she wouldn't have been free: Asajj Ventress. She had felt a duty to find the woman, to at least try and repay her.

It was on a street deep in the dark that she had found them waiting for her: Mace Windu, Ki Adi Mundi, and a few other skilled, strong Jedi. She had been surprised, if not exactly pleased to see them: many of those present served on the council that had decided her guilty before she even went to trial, ignoring the possibility that she was innocent.

Ahsoka's shoulders shook slightly in rage while she sat on her cot as she recalled their words. Mace had up and claimed the Jedi were worried about her: a young, force-strong warrior, with little of the training to resist the dark side, wandering the under-city of Coruscant searching for an ex-Sith assassin. Ahsoka hadn't bothered to point out she had resisted all darker attempts to influence her over the three years of war, the three years she had dutifully served the Republic, protecting it on the battlefield. Instead she had tried to persuade them of what Ventress had done, helping her on the way to getting evidence of her innocence.

It was Mundi's tone of voice that set Ahsoka on edge as he said they weren't there about that. He had used that same tone when presiding over her in the Temple, they all had. Apologetic but insincere, sad but not truly so, disappointed as well. She had tensed as every Jedi around her, on the street and rooftops lit their lightsabers, and she had felt so naked without her own, lost into the sewers when she evaded capture.

Mace had said he was sorry, not that he really sounded it, but he had claimed that having a rogue warrior, trained in the ways of the Jedi, and holding all their military secrets was too big of a risk. The chance the Sith may gain a hold on her was too great. She had given her last words of protest towards these masters she had once looked up to, had followed loyally in the fight for peace. Her words fell upon deaf ears.

They had set upon her with ferocity, bringing the full power of the force upon her. She had resisted, even managing to fight off many of the lightsaber blows with her bare hands, extremely aware of the fact that the glowing blades were very much capable of slicing through her flesh as she went for their hands, using techniques Anakin had taught her what seemed like decades before. _Anakin_. The one person she had been able to trust, who had never doubted her, always believed in her even as she fled from the Republic itself. He wasn't there then, he was off planet in the outer-rim, fighting another battle. He wasn't there as something shocked into her back, and she froze as the electric pain flowed up her spine. Someone took the opportunity to strike a blow to her head, knocking her out, and sealing her fate.

She hadn't resumed consciousness until what must have been hours later, her montrals still ringing. She was shackled behind her back, held up by a droid as the depths of space spread around her. Her eyes flickered to the landing platform she was upon, Mace Windu and a Jedi woman she never met before stood talking, a Republic shuttle sat on the platform by Windu. As he noticed her eyes flickering open, he looked to her, then turned to the Jedi woman. He nodded swiftly at something Ahsoka didn't register, and turned back to his ship, taking off before her eyes.

Briefly she tried to stand, but gave a cry of pain as the war-droid that had been holding her up shocked her, forcing Ahsoka back down to her knees. The woman had regarded her carefully, evaluating her.

"Put her in cell block one and enter her data into the systems," was all the woman said, spinning on her heel to walk past Ahsoka's line of sight.

Ahsoka's mind tried to respond to events as she was dragged inside what had briefly looked like a massive space station while she was still outside. A pair of war-droids had manhandled her down to a cell, and simply left her there after removing the cuffs.

For the first few hours the young togruta had been in shock, looking around at the bare gunmetal grey walls. Memories had slowly creeped their way back into her skull, of being attacked by the Jedi, knocked out, and taken _here_. It wasn't until where she really was registered that the anger set in. Ahsoka had been betrayed, _again_ , by the Jedi. Because she _might_ be a threat, she had been thrown in this prison to rot, alongside dark Jedi, assassins, and criminals.

Time had passed as it was wont to do, and she had given up trying to work out how long she had been here. Meals came infrequently, and there was no way of guessing the time from day or night. Around her darkness encroached, the weight of so many dark-side users pressing upon her. Perhaps that was the reason for her anger, her inability to find peace as she once could, and her occasional fits of rage as the sheer unfairness of it all hit upon her, beating her fists upon the cell door, yelling out, one more voice among the countless.

Nothing ever changed here. Except herself of course, as her body grew more adult-like, and her mind and thoughts changed, becoming more focused on her fury.

And so, here she sat on the fabric of her bed, contemplating once again. She tried to push her own anger from her body outwards and attempted to concentrate on the flow of the force around her. Dark and corrupted it may have been due to the inmates, but she at least found some solace within the bounds of the endless force.

Her head cocked to the side as something changed, something nearby, it was moving this way. Darkness swirled on the edge of the horizon, quickly followed by death, a voice crying out and joining the flow of the living force. She recognised the voice as the jailer, the Jedi who refused to speak whenever Ahsoka had cried out to her, but her presence in the force was undeniably gone.

Around her the prison began to shift, as if from slumber as darkness flowed across it in waves. There were two separate presences, one weaker, saturated in shadow, the other very strong and radiating anger. It felt familiar to her, oh so familiar as she tried to place the rage-filled presence moving ever closer.

In the realm of the physical, metal footsteps echoed down the corridor outside her cell, in rhythmic precision. Her lekku twitched, associating the space between each footfall with the length of the leg, of the man who had walked exactly in time with those same steps.

Recognition, deep and primal flooded through her system as the steps paused outside her cell, and his own presence felt towards her, registering the psychic probing. It was _him_ , after all this time, she would know him anywhere.

Ahsoka's eyes snapped open as emotions flooded through her, too many to really register each one, the barrage easily enough to rip her from the meditative state. Deep breaths shuddered into her body as she looked at the door, and to what lay beyond it. The only hole in the metal was a small grate at the top, far above the head, and from that gap came the sound of two more heavy steps, metal clacking soundly against metal.

All breath left her as the door opened, revealing the metal behemoth beyond.

"Anakin," she whispered, her voice hoarse from lack of use beyond screaming. Her stare was devastated as she regarded his form, metal covering most all of his body, and his breathing loud through an inbuilt re-breather in his helmet. He was obviously as much machine as man, and his presence in the force was a maelstrom of power, anger and the dark side, but he was unmistakably her former master.

"They told me you were dead," he said, his voice distorted by the technology in his helmet, but she recognised it all the same.

"The Jedi?" she replied quietly, feeling her own anger at simply saying the name well up inside her. His lack of response was all the answer she needed as he looked over her from behind that dark glass. "They put me here."

To many, he would not seem to have reacted, but even after all this time Ahsoka remembered his tics, seeing his right hand clench slightly in anger. She unwrapped her limbs from their previous position, and stood up shakily before him. He didn't move as she hesitantly reached her orange hand up to touch the cold metal of his face-plate. She lightly caressed the metal he was sealed inside, registering the existence of the armour and life support combined, especially obvious with the constant noise of his re-breather.

"Who-who did this to you?" Ahsoka asked quietly, her voice faltering slightly as she stared into where she knew his eyes to be, a single tear making its way unbidden down her cheek.

"The Jedi," he said after a long pause. Ahsoka's eyes fluttered downwards in shame as she considered herself, having been stuck in this prison, her greatest friend had been forced to endure something that put him in a mechanical suit of armour.

"I'm sorry Anakin," she whispered, looking back up into his face, tears welling in her blue eyes. "I should have been there for you, like you were for me."

"I am not Anakin Skywalker anymore," he grated out in response. Ahsoka smiled slightly, her hand moving to the side of his helm as she caressed the metal.

"I know you, better than the Jedi and the council ever did. I saw you on the battlefield; I fought by your side. That's when I always thought the real Anakin Skywalker emerged," she admitted to him in soft tones. "The 'Hero with no Fear,' the warrior who would fell a thousand droids without breaking a sweat, my…master. The man I followed from one end of the galaxy to the other." Her voice broke slightly as memories of Anakin's face flooded down on her, reminding her that she would never see that smile again now. She sniffed, straightening her back and wiping the salt water from her face.

"I wasn't there for you when I should have been, the Jedi kept me locked away here because I was a threatto their precious order. That's in the past; all I can do is make up for it." Her voice was stronger; pulling on the emotions she felt, primarily anger towards the Jedi, for imprisoning her and for doing this to Anakin. "I followed you then Skyguy, and I'll follow you now."

"A lot has changed Ahsoka."

"My life used to be blindly following the Jedi, dutifully fighting a war for the Republic for three years of my life. All I got in return for that was betrayal. I think I'm up for any changes."

"Palpatine is now emperor, the Republic is an Empire. My name is Darth Vader," he replied, and she could feel him looking into her for response to the title. The Sith moniker did nothing to persuade Ahsoka away from him, gazing back into his face without fear or hatred. She had experienced her own dark reflections of the Jedi, the Republic and the war they fought, and old indoctrinated Jedi teachings had little influence over her anymore. Deep within this prison, darkness enshrouded her daily; she did not fear it as she once had, feeling its strength adding power to her during her rages.

"Doesn't change a thing," Ahsoka replied quietly. Vader, as he called himself, studied her for a long moment. The title fit him she realised, as impressively foreboding as her master had always been. Eventually he tore his gaze from her, and spun on his heel to leave her cell.

"Follow me," he said simply. She did indeed follow him with some trepidation out of her cell, for the first time since her imprisonment here. Smiling slightly she looked over to where Vader's black cloak billowed as he pulled away from her.

She rushed to catch up to his long strides, and fell into smooth step by his side. It felt so right to be back by the towering man's side, with her master again after so long.

Dutifully she followed his path as he led her on to depths unknown.

 **A/N: Ok, don't expect any more chapters from this. Like I said, just a one-shot I felt like writing. Please do review and let me know what you think, and also look out for a Knights of the Old Republic fic I should be starting to post soon, which** _ **was**_ **supposed to be a full fic, but alas I never finished.**


End file.
